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"Air Cocaine" Pilots Set Free in France After Mysterious Fire Destroys Evidence at Headquarters of French Intelligence

Escaped pilots had links to French MP. Diario Libre

It seems that the French government is going to extreme lengths in order to prevent the prosecution of one of its members of Parliament in a case involving a plane full of narcotics that was set to depart from the Dominican Republic; a case aptly dubbed "Air Cocaine."

The large-circulation Caribbean daily Diario Libre reported that Pascal Jean Fauret and Bruno Odos -- the pilots who would have flown the hundreds of kilos of cocaine to France, and who later escaped with assistance of a former French commando under orders of Aymeric Chauprade, the only member of the French Parliament with an Interpol warrant on his head -- have been set free.

Christophe Naudin, the former commando who helped the imprisoned pilots escape to French soil, was arrested in Egypt and extradited to the Dominican Republic, with a fire engulfing DGSE, the headquarters of French intelligence, before Mr. Naudin had even landed on Dominican soil.

In the French government setting the two escaped pilots free, the case against Mr. Naudin in the Dominican Republic could easily fall apart, and thus the arrest warrant out for Mr. Chauprade, a member of Marine Le Pen's far-right party.

It's usually wealthy nations levying accusations at the intelligence agencies and politicians in middle-income nations of trafficking large quantities of cocaine to fund lavish lifestyles and secret operations, but sometimes those roles are reversed, as is the case with DGSE operations in the Dominican Republic.